This is an amusingly familiar argument. As a consultant, I see so many companies–small startups and big companies alike–wasting weeks and months of time on wast

This is an amusingly familiar argument. As a consultant, I see so many companies–small startups and big companies alike–wasting weeks and months of time on wasteful work because of this strong bias against "wasting time" to coordinate their efforts. They're avoiding dealing with communication problems within their teams and reflecting on their work, or, as in this case, stopping to critically think and exchange ideas about a project as it's underway. All things that can avoid team-weeks of effort spent moving in the wrong direction or delivering a shoddy product because the scope of consideration was overly narrow. Protocols such as this make it possible for groups of people to come together productively and shape a collective effort by reconciling multiple perspectives. The kind of discipline outlined here is what separates companies limited by the natural interaction dynamics of a few personalities and those that overcome those dynamics to combine the best of the talents of all the contributors. If anything, these things can be more important for a tiny, lean startup, as you have less runway to charge down paths that aren't optimal than a big company with an established product.